Lord of the Rings Return of the Ponies
by Stainless Steel Fox
Summary: In which the mane six end up at the battle of Pelenor fields, and we see how even the littlest pony can change the course of destiny.


**Lord of the Rings - Return of the Ponies**

A.K.A: I can't believe I'm doing this! I know my pony characterisation is probably shoddy, and I'm probably getting the battle timeline mixed up, but crack-fic is cracked...

Fluttershy stood at the edge of the court in front of the Tower of Ecthelion, at the very prow of the bastion that divided the circles of Minas Tirith, and watched the battle going on below, worrying about the safety of her friends.

It had started out innocently enough. After the kidnapping of Rarity by the Diamond Dogs, Twilight Sparkle had decided to teach her how to 'wink out'. As they'd gotten better at it, the two unicorns had started practising synchronised jumps, and even carrying other ponies with them. For the last test, they'd gathered all their friends at Twilight's home, intending to travel all the way to Canterlot.

In retrospect, maybe it the instant before the spell took effect hadn't been the best of times for Pinkie to pull out a party blower and blow it. In all fairness, she'd intended to blow it after they arrived, but the effect had messed up both unicorns' focus, and while they'd teleported to a white city built into a mountain, it hadn't been Canterlot.

Initially, things had been awkward, to say the least. The equines of this world weren't as bright as even some of the woodland creatures in Equestria, excepting Shadowfax, though even he couldn't talk to them. The creatures that were, had two legs and grasping paws like a squirrel, though they seemed to come in three or possibly four main sorts. They'd been as surprised as the ponies when the six appeared on top of the tower.

They'd interrupted one of them being burned on a funeral pyre, even though he wasn't dead yet. Rainbow Dash had hauled in a cloud and made quick work of the fire, and Applejack had lassoed the one who'd started it before he could jump off the tower. He was now locked up in a hospital, 'the houses of healing'. A white maned 'human' stallion in a wizard's hat, Gandalf seemed to take over, and in a discussion between him and Twilight Sparkle, they'd found out what was going on.

By the time Rarity and Twilight Sparkle had recovered enough to try travelling back to Canterlot, none of the ponies had wanted to. These people were facing a dreadful enemy, even worse than Nightmare Moon, and this Sauron person had a massive army of monsters that were attacking the city.

They'd decided to stay and help out, though Fluttershy's help had been mainly carrying stuff back and forth between the different levels, circles of the city. If only they'd been wearing their Elements of Harmony necklaces! They would have gone back for them, but Twilight didn't think she could find this place again if they did.

Rainbow Dash was out flying. The bad guys had scary, spooky people Nasty-guls or something, flying not-quite dragons that had been diving on the good guys and causing all sorts of trouble. However, none of them could out-run or out-manoeuvre Rainbow Dash, and it was hard to attack anyone when you kept on getting a face-full of pegasus polymerised cloud, or getting your helmet used as a drum by a set of hooves.

Twilight Sparkle and Rarity were down at the lowest gate, helping to buttress it against a battering ram with their combined telekinesis. A big scary human on the other side had appeared at dawn, and tried to blast it open with some magic, but the combined powers of Twilight Sparkle, Rarity and Gandalf had held it, barely. Now most of the evil army had stopped trying to get in, but there were still probing attacks, and the two unicorns were almost exhausted.

Meanwhile Applejack and Pinkie Pie were outside fighting alongside the horses of Rohan (and their riders), and trying to stop the big monsters, Oliphaunts, that were stomping around. She could see from here a flash of orange run between the legs of one Oliphaunt, which stumbled, spilling the house and the dark coated humans on it's back. Applejack had probably lassoed it's legs together.

Though a normal rope would have snapped like thread, after the Ursa Minor incident, Twilight Sparkle had decided if something like that had happened again, having a rope that wouldn't break would be a good idea. She'd gone on one of her 'crazy weekends of research' and figured out a way. Both she had Rarity had sacrificed some tail hairs and bound them into the rope, investing them with some unicorn power, Twilight's growing spell and Rarity's strongest anti-wear spells.

The result was a rope that could extend to whatever length Applejack needed, and was pretty much unbreakable. Applejack was making the most of it. Some of the black humans, the ones that got up charged her, but she turned and gave the lead one a pair of hind hooves in the brisket that knocked him flying into the others and into unconsciousness.

Pinkie Pie was rather more inventive, running up Oliphaunt trunks and waving rubber mice in front of their eyes. That tended to make them run into one another and knock each other out. She was also doing a good job of bouncing over and around the pointy sticks the black men were throwing at her. But there were so many, and so many other bad people out there, and if Gandalf was right, the one behind it had more armies just like this one.

Fluttershy would be the first to say, (very quietly) that she wasn't the most forceful or assertive pony, but she'd seen the human colts and their mothers huddling together in the upper tiers of the city, the bravery of the humans fighting. It had gotten her good and mad, and decided to do something to stop it. That was why she was up here.

She set her sights on a distant mountain, with a glowing fiery circle at the peak, and started flying towards it, taking care not to look down. The one behind it all was right there, so that's where she had to go to stop this business at the source. She was so intent on her distant target that she completely missed the Witch King flying on his fell beast, break free of the latest puff of Rainbow Dash fired cloud and swoop down on her.

Fortunately, someone else made her spot check, and just before the monster descended on the unsuspecting pony, it received a Sonic Rainboom to the chin as Rainbow Dash dive bombed it at the speed of sound. Blinded and deafened, the fell beast fell, tumbling out of the sky, to break it's fall and it's neck right next to the horse of a Roharim yclept Dernhelm (a.k.a Princess Eowyn), who proceeded to give the dismounted and disoriented Witch King another, fatal taste of girl power.

Rainbow Dash swept up alongside her, exclaiming, "Fluttershy? What in Celestia's mane are you doing out here? I thought you were helping out in the city!"

"I'm going to see this mean Sauron person and tell him to stop doing all this!" The yellow pony replied.

Rainbow shook her head. "Have you gone Pinkie Pie? It's dangerous out here!"

"Lots of people are getting hurt, or worse! I can't just stand with my wings folded and do nothing!"

Rainbow recognised the signs. This was crusading Fluttershy, the one who'd stared down a giant red dragon, and a cockatrice, _while_ it was turning her to stone. Trying to dissuade her was pointless. She looked around, the other flyers had retreated when their leader had gone down.

"Well if you're going to face the big bad, there's no way your facing him on your own! Besides, at the rate you're flying, they'll be writing history books about this battle before you get there! Grab on to my tail."

Rainbow flew up in front of Fluttershy and when the other pony had a mouthful of rainbow tail, started flying forward as fast as she could, towing the other pegasus. While she wasn't travelling at quite her usual speed, it didn't take more than thirty minutes to fly over the Black Gate, and approach Barad Dur.

As they got closer, it became clearer, a tall, twisted black tower rising from rocky peaks, and at the top, a massive eye made of flame, with a slit black pupil. The eye of Sauron turned to face them, and they felt it's attention on them. Even Rainbow Dash, epitome of loyalty and courage, quailed slightly as it's the full malevolence of eons focussed on them.

Fluttershy asked, "Rainbow, could you ask those dragons not to bother me? If it's not too much trouble?"

The rainbow pegasus thankfully peeled off to face the flying Nazgul rising from the lower reaches of the tower as Fluttershy flew on alone, into the very face of the eye.

She frowned. "Listen here you big meanie! Just because you are an evil overlord of evil with a big glowing eye and a huge army, doesn't mean you can go around bullying people and making them unhappy!"

The Eye redoubled it's fury, pouring all it's hate and malice into a beam of concentrated evil that would have laid waste to countries and seared armies in their tracks. But Fluttershy was having none of it. After all, she'd been glared at by Angel Bunny.

"Don't you dare glare at me in that tone of voice!" Her own frown turned into a full on glare. "You will not hurt all those other innocent people, or anyone else, not on my watch! Do... you... understand!"

She came right up to the centre of the Eye and eye-balled it. There was a moment of contact between them, then the slit pupil shrank to a dot, and the Eye seemed to shrink in on itself.

"Well?" Fluttershy flew even closer, and the eye tried desperately to look away. Drips of liquid fire pooled along the bottom edge and splashed on the stones of Barad Dur below.

"Now, this is what you are going to do!" Fluttershy stated in a good approximation of the Word of God. "You are going to go away, and don't ever let me catch you trying to plunge Middle Earth into an age of darkness ever again!"

Her eyes were mere slits, but that just redoubled the power of the Fluttershy stare. The eye of Sauron quivered, blinked and finally winked out, quelled by a far more powerful force.

On the mountains below, the tower of Barad Dur shook and started to crumble, and the Ringwraiths, who were still futilely trying to get past Rainbow Dash, collapsed in piles of cloth and armour as the rings that tied them to their master shattered, freeing the spirits of the human kings they'd enslaved.

On another mountainside, Frodo felt the one ring suddenly redouble in weight and burn with icy cold, then lighten greatly. He almost slipped, but was supported by Samwise.

On Pelenor fields, the armies of Mordor suddenly failed their morale checks, and started to retreat. The retreat was turned into a rout by the arrival of ships carrying Aragorn, Gimli, Legolas and an army of ghost warriors.

Rainbow Dash flew up alongside Fluttershy. "Now that was awesome! You totally out-stared that thing!"

Fluttershy blushed. "It wasn't so hard, I mean, I had twice as many eyes as it did."

"I see!" Rainbow Dash chuckled. "So you sorta defeated him in stare-eo!"

"Oh you! Come back here!" Fluttershy chased after the cackling pegasus, herself giggling, as they headed back towards Minas Tirith.

**Authors Notes:** Not to be taken at all seriously. Definitely not up to my usual standard. I was hit by a single idea after re-watching the episodes 'Dragonshy' and 'The Stare Master', followed by the excellent MLP/Lord of the Rings trailer spoof. www(dot)youtube(dot)com/watch?v=coExS8nrsGY

Fluttershy stares down Red Dragons and Cockatrices. How would she do against Sauron? After all, the bigger the eye, the more there is for her to affect. From there it was simple matter of getting the MLP FiM group to Middle Earth, which pretty much wrote itself. I'd love to have expanded on the idea, but I have a lot of other projects, and people waiting patiently on me.


End file.
